I was wondering if you could help me to solve a tricky mistery, at least for me, I'm about to distribute an animation to a couple of friends and maybe other people, I made the video in HD(1080p), rendered, compossed and edited. Now I have a uncompressed format from the video, but I don't know what kind of codec or tools, I need to make it playable for almost averyone who has mac or pc without the lossing of so much quality, I plan to burn the video as a file and if necessary add the right tools to be seen.

What is what you suggest that I should use? I heard something about H.264, MPG4, Procoder, Rhozet Carbon Coder, Cinema Craft Encoder,among others, but it is harder to take a good decision, What I would like that my users experiment when they put inside the CD/DVD on their computers, is an ease of use, and a good quality video and playback, I will burn 2 or 3 diferent formats maybe.

I hope you can help me or suggest something to me, ok, nice day and best wishes for 2009 year!

KenMADE

02-15-2009, 06:33 AM

I wondered the same thing while I was editing video shot in HD(1080p). If you want to render out a video to play on computers, or burn to data discs as opposed to DVD format, then I am not quite sure because when you export this format of video in MPG4 or H.264 it tends to lag and skip if you try to play it back in Quicktime. However, if you used the same exported footage and encoded it to DVD format or iPod format it should be fine without any lag. I'm not sure exactly why, but when you render HD video for playback on a computer it always lags for me until I render into some other form of playback other than computer (DVD, iPod, youtube, etc.) Having said that MPG4 seems to work best for me because it is compatible with most things that I usually render to.

abielmuren

02-16-2009, 04:55 PM

Yeah I used to compress videos in DVix but that thing isn't very compatible, then i try H264, and had lag, not to much, but I think i did't have it cos my computer is quite fast, I think that a good option is to have the codecs inside the data DVD where the contents are, but in the case I chose h264 I need to put quicktime installer or the link to apple download section.

I think i going to burn a data DVD or cd for computers and an other cd for high quaity, maybe Bluray, even if it is a little elitist at this moment.

What do you think about it?

Chugach3Dguy

02-18-2009, 02:25 AM

Encoding in HD can be a bit tricky. The main thing is to know where your audience will be viewing the video. So many people are hung up on the whole "FULL 1080p" thing that its causing headaches where it shouldn't. Frankly, I'd ditch the whole 1920X1080 resolution and go with 720p instead. You're still Hi-Def, but you have less pixels, and its more likely to fit on everyone's computer screen. Also, you won't have to wait as long for the compressor to render! Great looking content will look great at 720p or at lower resolutions.

I'd suggest using H.264 as your codec of choice. It's an efficient flavor of MPEG-4 and is what most Blu-Ray discs use. Try keeping your data rate under 15 Mbps. If you go down to 720p, you should be able to keep it at 10Mbps or lower. Lower data rates compress and lower your overall level of quality, but it becomes easier for most machines to handle. Blu-Ray discs have a typical data rate of 35 Mbps, although it may fluctuate or change depending on who produced the content and how much data is stored on the disc. Comparatively, standard definition DVDs typically play back between 3 and 7 Mbps. Broadcasters will compress the heck out of an HD signal to stay within their bandwidth limit. So, if you can see over the air HD, you're looking at 15-18 Mbps, whereas digital cable and satellite providers will squeeze HD as far as 11 Mbps or less, which encroaches on SD territory!

Stay away from Blu-Ray unless you know everyone else you're giving the disc to has a Blu-Ray capable machine or player. Keep in mind that many first generation Blu-Ray players have problems playing back content burned to BD-R discs using off-the-shelf burners. Also, understand that HD video playback on any device is a compromise between quality and data rate. The higher the level of quality, the larger the data throughput must be. That's why many HD cameras record HD at rates of 25, 35, 50, and 100 Megabits per second! That's quite a lot of data to deal with, and while your CPU may be more than able to handle it, the hard drives typically aren't.

Sorry for the wall of text, but if you're going to get into Hi-Def video and distribute it so people can see it on their computers or TV screens, it helps to have a little background. Because if you're looking for a job and the manager can't get the disc to play back smoothly, you've just lost out. Hope this helps!

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